July 23, 2012

Do Agile Demands Short Circuit An Insightful Design Method?

Now more than ever design matters. Now that I am back to my roots of video and mobile I have realized that Agile is here to stay. The economic difficulties of the past years as well as the focus on tangible innovation has almost shoved waterfall under the perverbial bus; now more than ever, long requirements phases and vaporous up-front documentation aren’t acceptable. Software must be visible and valuable from the start.

The teams and clients we work with are undergoing their own dramatic changes. The shift of development processes removes the notion of "big design upfront." Instead, we sprint towards an incremental design process that lets us learn what our users need throughout the development process.

Adapting our design methods to fit this new way of developing brands is presenting some interesting challenges. The roles of "sprint zero" and the idea of staying one step ahead of the team is only taking us so far. I think we need to learn to create a driving vision and research-based principles that guide every decision from the team, not just those we have a direct hand in, to ensure a unified, thoughtful design that delights our users.

In a world where best-to-market usually beats first-to-market how do you fuse data and insights into a new breed of design studio?

Comments

Do Agile Demands Short Circuit An Insightful Design Method?

Now more than ever design matters. Now that I am back to my roots of video and mobile I have realized that Agile is here to stay. The economic difficulties of the past years as well as the focus on tangible innovation has almost shoved waterfall under the perverbial bus; now more than ever, long requirements phases and vaporous up-front documentation aren’t acceptable. Software must be visible and valuable from the start.

The teams and clients we work with are undergoing their own dramatic changes. The shift of development processes removes the notion of "big design upfront." Instead, we sprint towards an incremental design process that lets us learn what our users need throughout the development process.

Adapting our design methods to fit this new way of developing brands is presenting some interesting challenges. The roles of "sprint zero" and the idea of staying one step ahead of the team is only taking us so far. I think we need to learn to create a driving vision and research-based principles that guide every decision from the team, not just those we have a direct hand in, to ensure a unified, thoughtful design that delights our users.

In a world where best-to-market usually beats first-to-market how do you fuse data and insights into a new breed of design studio?